Well, how do you fare compared to the Zeitgeist?
Chat up your fellow wooters and let us know how lame this poll was or what obvious choices we missed.
For example: Was this poll a) STUPID, b) DUMB, c) POINTLESS or d) ALL OF THE ABOVE?

jclark

I was thrilled with the Star Wars Lego. I had no problems with the DC Comics Lego, they were an established iconic property. The Indiana Jones sets I figured just came along with the LucasArts licensing that gave them Star Wars. The Pixar sets made sense, they were iconic, kid-friendly properties. LOTR, sure, alignment with a core demographic, perfect sense. I started to get worried with the Pirates of the Caribbean sets. I started smelling "Oops, we over-committed to Disney to get the Pixar licenses and now we're in trouble." But when I saw the Lone Ranger sets at Target, I threw up in my mouth a little.

lotsofgoats

If you want it to be about building, get an Erector Set or something. If you want it to be about following instructions, understanding how components fit together, and then imagining your little vehicle flying around and shooting things and then breaking and then figuring out how to put it back together... well I think those are all good things, yea?

olperfesser

triplebud

This is like saying GI Joe and He Man were not fun because they had personalities instead of being generic army men or action figures. Have you seen the spreads these kids put together and then create a full Batman movie better than the current crap on 3-D screens around the world?
Amazing. I WISH I had lego sets that included all the cartoons and movies I loved.
ET legos when you were that age... SERIOUS?! My head would have exploded.

noodle192000

You can still get basic, non-licensed Lego sets. It's not like the licensed sets are all they are making.
I'm lucky enough to live somewhat near a Lego store, too. :-) I hope my son will like them when he gets older...right now he's not even Duplo age.

HomerTime

cebii wrote:my son follows the instructions once, then takes it apart and puts the pieces in with the rest, to make his own spaceships and battlefields later on.

Same here with my son. Yes, he likes the mini-figs, but they are always being played with in environments he constructs from his imagination. I think most people who claim the playsets are killing creativity are making a false assumption on what they *think* kids are doing, not how kids are really playing with them.

My main complaint is that Lego only makes most mini-figs available in the playsets. My son probably has more than enough bricks to build almost anything he could imagine, so playsets are only attractive for the mini-figures. Sorry son, but I am not going to buy a $100 Jabba's palace so you can get the Bib Fortuna mini-fig.

3blindmice

Legos have always been fairly expensive, but you used to get a lot of diversity in the sets with the large number and relative simplicity of parts. With the castle and the tall ship sets you started to see a shift away from building from basics, but you still got enough parts that you could do something else creatively with a single set.

What I've seen is a trend toward larger fancier precast parts which really limits what else you can do with them. Hopefully that trend will reverse itself over time.

sparklecoogs

I'm pretty sure price has "taken the imagination" out of LEGO. If you've never been to a LEGO store, try it sometime. You'll get to witness the soul-crushing moment when a wide-eyed child takes his/her favorite set off the shelf and reads the sticker price.

sheilasu

cebii wrote:my son follows the instructions once, then takes it apart and puts the pieces in with the rest, to make his own spaceships and battlefields later on.

My 8 year old grandson has every toy going, it seems, but his favorites are the Lego sets...the only problem for me is the price - each time we go into the Lego Store I almost have a massive coronary - $100. + for a few pieces of plastic!! I must say, though, that he absolutely loves playing with the pieces - he keeps them separate for awhile, then the pieces all get put together, and he makes towns, villages, vehicles, etc...it does help that he already has a wonderful imagination!

jenniferbreuer4

sheilasu wrote:My 8 year old grandson has every toy going, it seems, but his favorites are the Lego sets...the only problem for me is the price - each time we go into the Lego Store I almost have a massive coronary - $100. + for a few pieces of plastic!! I must say, though, that he absolutely loves playing with the pieces - he keeps them separate for awhile, then the pieces all get put together, and he makes towns, villages, vehicles, etc...it does help that he already has a wonderful imagination!

Last Christmas I was looking for Lego toys for my nephews and they were very, very expensive. I came across a site (I don't remember what that site was) that gave coupons out for another site called the plastic brick. I found a couple good deals for the kids and purchased them (that was in 2012). I don't want to say the sets were "used" but they were from other people exchanging them. I decided how "used" could a Lego setup be and I was very satisfied with what I received and so were the boys. Just a suggestion because they are very expensive.

bogus

3blindmice wrote:Legos have always been fairly expensive, but you used to get a lot of diversity in the sets with the large number and relative simplicity of parts. With the castle and the tall ship sets you started to see a shift away from building from basics, but you still got enough parts that you could do something else creatively with a single set.

What I've seen is a trend toward larger fancier precast parts which really limits what else you can do with them. Hopefully that trend will reverse itself over time.

This is my gripe too. I grew out of Legos years ago (well mostly...hehe) but most all of the sets I see on shelves look to contain >50 percent specialized parts that are only really going to be useful for that particular set or theme.

But it does bug me that so much of their stuff is licensed. Part of the fun of Lego is/was that you could create your own fantasy world, not live in someone else's.

jditzler

My grandsons have an extremely large collection of the play sets. When they receive one as a gift, they assemble it and play with it for a day or two, then the imagination comes out and they take it apart and use pieces from everything and build what they design/dream. Grandma saved the Legos that my son had back in the late 70s, there was a storage tote full and then some. The boys love getting into those pieces to complete their designs. Space ships, Shuttle craft, boats, airplanes, tanks and what ever they can conger up. We live just a few blocks away and they will ride their bikes over to our house to get that one special piece out of the old Legos to complete their project! Legos are one of the most ingenious toys (I hesitate to call them toys) that were every designed and offered on the market. Oh, I almost forgot, my youngest grandson has attended several robotic camps at UNO, SAC museum and Creighton University and loves the large robotic building sets from Lego, ,I wish I could afford them for my boys, they are amazing.

Woot.com is operated by Woot Services LLC.
Products on Woot.com are sold by Woot, Inc., other than items on Wine.Woot which are sold by the seller specified on the product detail page.
Product narratives are for entertainment purposes and frequently employ
literary point of view;
the narratives do not express Woot's editorial opinion.
Aside from literary abuse, your use of this site also subjects you to Woot's
terms of use
and
privacy policy.
Woot may designate a user comment as a Quality Post, but that doesn't mean we agree with or guarantee anything said or linked to in that post.